Painted crosswalks added to Uptown Lexington for aesthetics, safety

LEXINGTON, N.C. -- The City of Lexington plans to upgrade their crosswalks in the central business district.

Crews spent the morning and afternoon striping and painting the crosswalks a brick-like color.

NCDOT resurfaced Main and West Center streets so the city jumped on the opportunity to upgrade the crosswalks to improve the overall look of the area.

"They will go from Third Street on the north end of Main down to Fourth Avenue south near the amphitheater," said Terra Greene, City of Lexington assistant city manager.

Jennie McNeill spends time walking through Uptown for daily exercise. McNeil likes the artistic idea and hopes the added color will make drivers more aware of people crossing the street.

"When you see black streets, you really don’t want to pay attention to the crosswalks. But if you see a color pop like brick it’s like, OK this is for the pedestrians," said McNeill.

Crash records reveal there have only been four pedestrian crashes in the Uptown Lexington area since 2014. Out of the four, one was reported on Main Street with non-life threatening injuries.

"I think that when you have the volume of residents and visitors that come in into Lexington, to know exactly where pedestrian traffic needs to cross is really important and so that red just stands out and it makes it very clear," Greene said.

"They had the crosswalks like this before up here and I think people really liked them then, and I think they’re going to really like them now," said James Llewellyn, a Lexington resident.

The work requires temporary road closures as they continue to install the crosswalks through mid-November.